With the recent advance of technology, various kinds of personal computers (PCs), such as a desktop type, a tower type, a notebook type, etc., have been developed and marketed. The recent PCs usually include a function for displaying an image as a bitmap, in which the image is displayed in a picture element unit, due to an enhanced video subsystem and an enhanced capability of processing arithmetic operations of a central processing unit (CPU).
An Operating System, such as "OS/2" of IBM Corporation ("OS/2" is a trademark of IBM Corporation) and "Windows95" of Microsoft Corporation, is installed with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Generally, the computer system providing the GUI environment allows the use of an input device; i.e., a pointing device, such as a mouse, a track ball, a touch pad, or a track point, which is capable of pointing to a coordinate position.
The pointing device realizes two basic functions. One is a function for two dimensionally moving a cursor (a mouse cursor) on the display screen, and the other is a click function of the mouse button indicating a select operation. The user can select a function relating to the object by moving the mouse cursor to a particular position of the display screen, such as a position within the display area of the object, and performing a click operation of the mouse button (usually the click of a left button). The user of the computer system has a personal habit that he/she tends to move or place the mouse cursor on the object; for example, the active window now worked, to which he/she is just focusing. The reason for this action is to smoothly perform the select operation on the object being focused.
Many object symbols, such as icons, folders, are prepared on the display screen; i.e., "desktop," in the GUI environment. The user can select the desired object symbol by moving the mouse cursor to the desired icon or the folder by using the pointing device, and performing the click operation of the mouse button. For example, if the user selects the icon relating to a particular application, the application is activated and the application window is opened.
In a multitasking Operating System, a plurality of application windows are simultaneously opened on the desktop (it is called a multiwindow), and the applications now activated are processed in a time sharing scheme. For example, when the user performs an editing operation on the forefront surface, another application of the background surface is executed or in a standby state.
The active window is the display area being just focused by the user to which the user can perform the input operation by the key/mouse. Usually, the mouse cursor is placed within the active window, as described above, while the inactive window(s) located in the background or on the periphery of the active window is not focused by the user, and is the display area to which the input operation by the key/mouse is impossible and is in the inactive state. The mouse cursor tends to not be placed in the inactive window.
The window in the inactive state is ineffective but to merely occupy a portion of the display screen, and is equivalent to dead space.
The active/inactive state of the object/window correlates with the position of the mouse cursor. A prior technology has already existed to cause the GUI to change in relation to the manipulation of the mouse. For example, it has been well known in the art to switch a frame of a button or an area within the frame displayed in a three-dimensional mode to a highlight display mode and to prompt the user input in response to a detection that the cursor enters into the frame of the button. This technology is used in several applications. But, such change of the display mode of the button is only to notify to the user, and does not cause the display area in the inactive state to be effectively used.
A task bar in "Windows95" or "Windows" of Microsoft Corporation can be listed as another prior technology for changing the GUI in relation to the manipulation of the mouse. The task bar has an optional function that the task bar buries outside of the desktop in the case that the mouse cursor is not positioned in the display area of the task bar. The operation for burying the task bar has an effect for effectively using the inactive area. Such burying operation, however, vacates its own display area to others, and has the nature as if it becomes the icon. Also, in this case, the manipulation on the task bar requires a two-step operation; i.e., an operation for appearing the buried task bar for a start, and an operation for performing the manipulation for the selection.